It’s a documented fact I’m not the biggest fan of Walmart.

But there’s this Supercenter one on my way home from work, and the prices are really good.

And the best part?

The self-checkout lane allows for 20 items.

Granted, I checked out of there with 32 items, but at least it wasn’t the “10 only” regular Walmart.

I also learned that if I ever need a second job, I can TOTALLY be a checker. I’m fast and I bag well.

😀

It’s the little things, you know.

I’m cooking a turkey.

And first of all, cleaning a turkey and soaking it is quite possibly the grossest thing ever. And it’s kinda smelly. (It was a fresh turkey, as in, LIVE three days ago.) Ugh.

Now it’s cooking in the oven and two hours later, it’s finally starting to smell like an actual turkey, which is much better than what it smelled like when we opened the bag yesterday.

So the turkey is cooking, the pots are set on the stove for the rest of the goodies and I am now drinking alcoholic coffee.

Mmmm, holidays. 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving!

You, girl on the train with her boyfriend (who was helping a nun with her suitcase).

Me, long-haired, bony-assed youngish dude with a beanie wearing jeans.

Your back was toward me when your hand slid up my leg and grabbed my ass, but I know you were only trying to be sly so your boyfriend (again, who was helping a nun) wouldn’t see.

Let’s get together and grope.

………..

I will never, ever live this down. EVER. I have never been so mortified. And the Chop thinks it’s hysterical. Kill me.

Thai food at one of my favorite restaurants, Topaz… $50

Midnight pizza at Famiglia… $9

Cupcake at Crumbs for breakfast (it was Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough)… $3

Nova Salmon on a Bagel w/ Capers for lunch… $5

Learning the Porkchop Now Has to Come to NYC several times a month (and I get to come too.. free hotel!)… PRICELESS.

Which means in two weeks, when we’re back down here and can stay through a Saturday, Porkchop gets to experience Canal Street. Woot!

(Although I admit I am a little worried they will think he is conspicuous… due to the 6’3″ problem, lol.)

My cousin’s oldest son is IMing me right now, which is always highly entertaining, simply because he tries to make me believe he is his mom. This time I almost thought it was her, but I quizzed him and badaboom, it’s the little bugger. (I told him he’s not getting any Christmas presents now, lol.)

The Porkchop and I are heading to NYC tomorrow for a few days. He has to work there and I want to shop… :D. Sadly, I also have to work, but it’s the first week of my 2-days-at-home, 3-days-at-work deal and while I’ll work during the day, at night, I shall shop and go to the theatre and eat NYC food. 🙂 🙂 (Somewhere my sister is very jealous.)

So I shall leave her with some new music I just recently stumbled across…

I heard about Kris Delmhorst on NPR the other night. She has several albums, but her most recent is one where she takes old poems (from the likes of E.E. Cummings and Robert Browning) and sets them to music—and they are lovely.

One of my favorites: Galuppi Baldessare.

Another I heard somewhere I can’t remember, a folk singer named Catherine Feeny. The song I first heard, and one of the ones I love best, is Mr. Blue.

Milton Friedman died today.

You may not know who that is, but I guarantee he’s had an impact on your life with his ideas.

NPR was discussing his death, and what he did for economics, while I was on my way home. I learned about him in high school… I had a crazy teacher who preached Friedman’s laissez-faire economics like there was no tomorrow. It wasn’t until I got older (and had to live in the real world) that I realized the importance of his theories.

From the Boston Globe: “Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who played a key role in the intellectual resurgence of capitalism and the global shift to free-market economics in the final third of the 20th century, died today at a San Francisco hospital. He was 94.

In a 90th-birthday tribute, the columnist George F. Will described Dr. Friedman as ‘the most consequential public intellectual of the 20th century.'”

Wikipedia has some great info and links.

My favorite person is having a sample sale.

It’s invite-only, but you can register and get in on the deals. (Some stuff is 75% off.) It only lasts four days and some things are already selling out… even though it started this morning.

Fortunately, I already got the one I wanted—seconds before it sold out. 🙂

:::happy dance, happy dance:::

One of the best things about my job is the environment, and in particular, the funny people who I share an office space with… let’s call them Mickey and Granny.

I’m in the design room (which is actually a space twice the size of my apartment and half of it’s the conference room) because they couldn’t decide where else to put me. (And thank god, ’cause if I was with the sales people.. oh lord.) So I’m the Web person and Mickey and Granny are the print people and I swear, they are some of the funniest coworkers I have ever had.

Mickey has a very dry, caustic sense of humor and really, really loathes the sales team; Granny is at least 60-something, and just as funny… although she’s a bit nicer about the sales team.

Together, they’re a comic duo of greatness.

And I… I am the instigator. Err.

As labeled by my boss, following a round of barely stifled laughter during Mickey’s one—and only—photo shoot for an image we needed.

It wasn’t my fault though.. he was making faces (and little comments) behind the magazine. All I was doing was laughing!

The rest of the day my emails arrived addressed to the Instigator Upstairs.

😛

First of all, oh the cupcake-y goodness. (That gave me joy.)

Second, I have the bestest cousin ever… she sent me a package for my birthday. 🙂 And it contained… a tiara! Wheeee!

Which I would’ve been wearing when the Porkchop came home from the grocery store this evening, but SOMEBODY forgot his wallet.

Yep.

So instead of making dinner wearing my tiara, I found myself heading back out into the rain, sans tiara.

But the day didn’t end there, oh no.

The day ended with a toilet overflowing and tonic water exploding.

Never a dull day, people, never a dull day.

Usually he sits toward the front. He wears dress slacks, but no tie and always seems like he only brushed the front part of his hair. He nods often, asks questions constantly and sits sideways, eyeballing the room, as if looking for a prospect.

And he sat in front of me today and irritated the ABSOLUTE shit out of me.

He’s the constant conference-goer and my sweet lord in heaven, I can’t stand him.

Which in part led to my having a very obnoxious day.

Here’s the thing about seminars/conferences: sometimes they’re good, but most of the time they’re worthless.

Today’s seminar? Useless. Not only was the information old, I gave one of the panelists more information than he had. That’s so sad to me. And it makes for a boring day, particularly when I have to get up at 530AM to make sure I’m there by 8AM, and I’m tired and there are so many things at work I want to do.

I know there are good conferences out there, ones with relevant, viable information that specifically pertain to certain fields, but sometimes those are overshadowed by corporations with lots of cash who put on nonsense seminars on their namebrand alone.

And it’s insanely irritating.